


Dragon Age Drabbles

by tokidokifish



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:27:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24869122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokidokifish/pseuds/tokidokifish
Summary: A collection of various drabbles from Thedas, currently starring Guinevere Tabris and Casrien Surana.
Relationships: Alistair & Female Warden (Dragon Age), Anders & Female Warden (Dragon Age), Zevran Arainai/Male Surana
Kudos: 1





	1. Guinevere Tabris: Amaranthine

The door to what was apparently the Warden-Commander’s study stood open, so Alistair leaned against the jab and knocked. He really needn’t have bothered; he could have walked in and had a seat and Guinevere Tabris would have reacted with exactly as much surprise as she did now, which was to say: absolutely none.  
  
“I feel like I should have had more warning that the King was coming,” she said, without looking up from whatever she was working on. She _never_ had to look up. It was a little creepy.

“I’m not here as the King, I’m here as a friend,” he said, stepping inside and taking a seat when she waved a hand at him. He took a moment to look around - whatever the room had looked like before, its shape had been obscured by a truly intimidating number of bookshelves. Every one of them sported a number of books that was, if anything, even more intimidating, so many that they spilled out in haphazardly neat stacks onto every available surface (including, on occasion, the floor). Guinevere’s desk sported a particularly precarious pile, and he tipped his head to read some of the titles - most of them were various volumes of history about the Blights, and all of them had bits of paper, apparently marking something Guin found interesting, sticking out of them.

When he pulled his eyes away from the books, Guin was looking at him, one thin eyebrow raised. “Also I bribed Oghren to point me to you without all the fuss,” he added, and she rolled her eyes.

“Of course. And he leered and did it.” She set aside her quill and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. There _had_ been a leer involved, but Alistair was willing to bet that Oghren would have directed him to the Warden-Commander even if the dwarf wasn’t convinced they were having some secret series of trysts; she looked like she needed a break. He made a mental note to at least try to find excuses to do this more often - preferably ones that didn’t have to deal with Wardens.

“So - _I’m_ fine. The calls to have me ousted have died down to just some nasty muttering, so I’d say it’s going much better than expected,” he commented, lightly. “And I’ve heard _you_ cut ties with Weisshaupt.”

“Ah.” Her eyes narrowed, a little. “A little birdie on your shoulder whispered that one to you, I expect?”

He waved a hand. “A little birdie, an angry letter from the Wardens, it’s all the same.” He arched a brow at her. “ _Apparently_ they tried to send you a new recruit and you sent him back and told them to go fuck themselves.”

“I did _not_ ,” she interjected, sounding offended.

“Not _exactly_ ,” he agreed. “They sent me a copy of the letter.”

“Of course they did,” she muttered, as he pulled it out.

“You _actually_ told them that if they tried to send you any more ‘lyrium-addled ex-Templars with perverse fascinations about watching mages’, you would have them arrested,” he read. “Ah, and then you apparently considered the legal ramifications of just arresting random people, and added that it’s your arling, and you’d 'find a reason’.”

She rubbed her nose. “I was upset.”

“Apparently. My favorite part is when you told them to - and I am _quoting_ here - 'get their shit together and deal with the Templars like adults’. And suggested it might help if they pretended the Templars were Darkspawn.” He folded the letter up and tucked it away again, and looked across the desk. “And you haven’t responded to a letter from them since.”

She pressed her hand over her eyes, now. “And they sent you a letter to… what, complain?” she asked.

“And to heavily hint I should _order_ you to allow them to send whatever kind of recruits they see fit,” he agreed. “Because I’m a former Grey Warden myself, I expect. I’ve already written back to tell them it’s your arling and you can do what you want, and the last thing I can afford right now is to go around antagonizing members of the Landsmeet. What with my position being _so tenuous_ , and all.”

She dropped her hand and looked at him. “Alistair,” she said, her voice warming. “You _lied_ for me.”

He shifted a little in his seat, suddenly finding himself quite interested in the view out one of her windows (the only parts of the room that hadn’t been covered by bookshelves, thankfully). “Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “Even if you hadn’t _saved Ferelden_ , we - you - you’re a friend. And you’re usually a lot more… diplomatic than that. I figured it must have been important to you.”

“I suppose that’s one way of putting it,” she murmured, and reached up to rub her eyes again. For a moment, that seemed like all she would have to say on the matter, but she pushed herself out of her chair, instead. “It’s just so - bloody - it’s not _fair_ ,” she hissed, pacing behind her desk. “The Wardens - they take _anyone_ worthy enough. That’s the _entire point_! Duncan conscripted me after I had killed my way through a bloody castle to keep a nobleman’s son from hurting my friends, and I never had to worry about Arl Urien getting one of his guards in the Wardens to keep an eye on me. But just because Anders is a _mage_ \- he went through the Joining! He’s had the nightmares! He’s been down in the Deep Roads with the rest of us, killing Darkspawn - he’s done _everything_ that’s been asked of him, and bloody _Weisshaupt_ sends a bloody _Templar_ to keep an eye on him? I won’t have it! Not here! He deserves better!” She nearly took out the stack of books on her desk with a particularly vicious motion, and she stopped abruptly, looking a little embarrassed.

“Well,” Alistair breathed. “'Important to you’ would… definitely be one way of putting it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, dropping back into her chair and putting her head in her hands. “That wasn’t-”

“I understand,” he said. “And - I mean, I agree, of course. If the Wardens keep on me, I suppose we could give them Soldier’s Peak? You don’t want to go back anyhow, do you?” She made a face that indicated her feelings about going back to Soldier’s Peak quite clearly, and he chuckled. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I,” she said, and then stopped, and looked down at what she had been working on before he arrived. “I haven’t a clue,” she said, and walked around the desk to offer him a hand. “But I didn’t have a clue when we were fighting the Blight, and I think we got out all right.”

He laughed, taking her hand to pull himself out of his seat. “I suppose we did, now that you mention it.”


	2. Guinevere Tabris: Kirkwall

The waves of refugees that flowed into Kirkwall from Ferelden had ebbed since the Blight had ended, but that hardly meant there were _less_ of them. Many of the Fereldans living in Lowtown or squatting in Darktown had used everything they had to cross the Waking Sea and even get into Kirkwall proper; they had no money left to make a return voyage, especially if it was to ashes. And of course, they still came to the clinic in droves. Anders didn’t mind, of course, that’s why he was _there_ , but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate days like today, when things were maybe just a little slower, and he actually had time to catch his breath between patients. He was actually entertaining idle fantasies of turning in early and getting enough sleep, for once - but then he heard the door open, and all of that was forgotten in an instant. People coming to the clinic this late was rarely a good thing - he was expecting a dangerously sick child or someone who had fallen into the spikes that inexplicably lined Kirkwall’s streets as he left his small back room; perhaps a woman going into labor if he was _lucky_.

He _wasn’t_ expecting the Warden-Commander to be standing in the middle of his clinic, peering around critically.  
  
He froze. “I’m not going back,” he blurted out, after a long moment, and winced when she turned to look at him, calmly.

“And I’m not here to try and make you,” she said, slowly. “I imagine it would be expected of me, but when have I done what’s expected of me?”

She didn’t mean it as a barb - Guinevere Tabris was many things, all of them impressive and most of them slightly terrifying as well, but passive-aggressive was not one of them - but the reminder of all she had done for him still hurt.

“Then why _are_ you here?” he asked, and she looked at him like he was stupid.

"I was _worried_ about you, idiot,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You just left without a word to me or anyone else - anyone other than _Justice_ , I suppose - and then I find you here -” She waved a hand at the clinic and, he could only presume, Kirkwall at large, “- and I _worried_ , Anders. I am allowed to worry about what happens to my friends.” She dropped her hand, and stared at him. “If you wanted to leave, you could have _told_ me.”

"I couldn’t, really,” he said. “Because I - we needed to leave, but you would have made that ‘I’m not mad, I’m _disappointed_ ’ face - just like you are right now, actually -“

She went through an interesting series of increasingly amusing expressions, apparently in an attempt to banish the ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed’ face. “I am not making a face, there is no face -“

”- And I knew you could have made us stay,” he finished, cringing a little. “Even if you didn’t want to, I think you could have. So I just… didn’t give you a chance.” He sank down on one of the unoccupied beds, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and she stepped closer.

"Anders,” she said, quietly, and then stopped. She reached out, cupping the back of his neck, and squeezed gently. “If this is what you need to do, I’m not going to ask you to come back. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. Both of you.”

“I’m okay,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “ _We’re_ okay.”

"Okay. Alright.” She squeezed the back of his neck again, and then dropped her hand away, stepping back. “But.” Her tone made him look up, blinking in surprise; she was abruptly more serious than he could remember seeing her, at least since they had dealt with the Architect. “Anders, this place makes my skin crawl. And I don’t mean that Gallows place, or the spikes, or the slums - I mean there is something _wrong with this city_ , Anders. Something seriously, magically wrong. I’m not going to ask you to come back, but please - if our friendship has meant anything to you, either of you - get out of Kirkwall. There are other refugees, other places to help. I don’t think it’s good for either of you to be here. It’s not good for _anyone_ to be here.”

"I.” He blinked, off-balance. Of course Kirkwall had never really felt _right_ but he had just assumed it was the Templars or the way the refugees were treated affecting him - this was coming from _Guin_ , who was preternaturally sensitive towards anything having to do with the Fade. That was significantly more disturbing. He licked his lips, and nodded. “There’s something I need to do, first, but - after that. I’ll do my best.”

She nodded, and her expression lightened, a little. “Thank you, Anders.” She looked, for a moment, indecisive, and then she stooped down to press a kiss to his forehead and stepped away abruptly, as if to pretend it had never happened. “And, ah. Take care of yourself. Well. Both of you. And if you _do_ ever want to come back - there will always be a place for you in Vigil’s Keep.”

“Thank you,” he said, “Commander.” She gave him a look, but her lips twitched up into a little smile.

“Goodbye Anders, Justice,” she murmured, giving him a nod, and then let herself out into the Darktown night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would you believe i hadn't figured out that guin was totally gone for anders when i wrote these. just call me boo boo the fool.


	3. The Magpie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this takes place in a save state called "salt the earth", where the warden and hawke were both just the fucking WORST.

Once the Rite of Annulment was decided on, and the Warden and his companions are on the way out, a magpie abruptly perches on Zevran’s shoulder and gives him a look that says, as eloquently as a look has ever spoken, “snitches get stitches”.

And that’s how Zevran meets Casrien Surana.

Granted, Zevran doesn’t _know_ that. He doesn’t even really know that it’s not a normal (if _very_ opinionated) magpie, maybe a mage’s pet. But Zevran isn’t stupid - occasionally given to poor decisions and reckless at times, but not _stupid_ , and he’s travelling in the company of a woman who routinely turns herself into a giant spider, so it doesn’t take an enormous leap of logic to realize the bird that just happened to appear on their way out of a tower where every mage within had been sentenced to death may be more than it appears to be. (Besides, he’s never seen a magpie with blue eyes, before.)

But even if he _was_ a snitch, Zevran certainly wouldn’t share his secrets with Aedan Cousland, whose cruelty and callous disregard for people who aren’t of immediate use to him puts the Crows to shame. Zevran is, of course, a man who understands the necessity of death, but there was nothing necessary about what had happened in that tower (and he hadn’t been afraid to say as much; this is why, he assumes, the bird came to him). Aedan Cousland is cruel as only a noble could be, without concern for whom he harms because he’s never had to deal with any repercussions, because he understands what are considered _acceptable targets_. 

And so Zevran doesn’t mention the bird, even when it stays, against all logic. He expected it to fly away as soon as they were far enough from the tower, and yet it remains, and spends its time perched proprietorially on his shoulder. He finds himself, strangely, comforted by the company, even when it comes in so small and silent a package. He finds himself talking to it, absently, which is probably quite strange, but it never seems to mind (and it is hardly shy about expressing its displeasure when it _does_ mind something).

“I didn’t know you were the type to get so attached to pets,” Leliana says.

“I am simply full of surprises,” he replies, and he’s doesn’t even turn it into a flirt, partly because the magpie tends to pull at his hair when he does that.

The others notice, because of course they must - it is a small camp. Leliana is charmed by the bird, even if it only seems to like Zevran and won’t let anyone else touch it, although it will accept snacks from Wynne. Alistair thinks the dog is a much better pet, and seems to regard the magpie with some sort of suspicion, as if its part of some nefarious plot to eventually murder the Warden (he should be so lucky; Zevran knows well what happens to bastard princes around ambitious nobles). Aedan takes the longest to notice, if only because the magpie is smart enough to make itself scarce around the Warden, and when he does he mentions, conversationally, that he used a pile of shiny stones to attract and kill a magpie when he was a child (Zevran is entirely unsurprised).

Morrigan - Zevran does not know what Morrigan thinks of the bird. She seems considering and amused when she looks at it, but if she knows the truth of things she does not mention it to Aedan, and Zevran cannot imagine why; she had gone along with the Rite of Annulment with obvious pleasure. Perhaps she was simply impressed one of them had the smarts and skill to escape.

He may not know what has inspired her unusual charity, but he does not look it askance, because Aedan disappears to find the Anvil of the Void and comes back without Shale. He goes to find the Urn of Sacred Ashes and returns without Leliana _or_ Wynne, which seems to shock even the magpie, who wasn’t altogether fond of either of them. After that, Brecilian Forest seems like a respite, even for the magpie, which seems social and downright playful among the elves (perhaps Zevran had been mistaken, about why it had come to him). He wonders if it will stay with the Dalish. It probably should, but he cannot bring himself to say as much. He’s selfish that way, he supposes.

It doesn’t matter, in the end.

“Do not do this thing,” he says, he _begs_ , and he could bite his tongue off for it - that, and admitting his mother was Dalish, because he can see the obvious pleasure with which Aedan Cousland says, “It’s already done.”

The magpie tucks itself into the curve of his throat, that night, after it’s done, but Zevran thinks that neither of them sleeps. Zevran rarely sleeps, after that.

“You should leave, my little friend,” he says, in Denerim, after the Alienage. Not even what happened with Caladrius is a surprise at this point. He's so, so tired, too tired for anything the Warden could do to surprise him, and he knows - he _knows_ \- he will not survive what’s coming, one way or another. “I was a fool to think what he was did was _sparing_ me,” he murmurs, stroking a finger over the splash of white on the bird’s wing, and the magpie looks at him like he’s an idiot.

He sleeps too deeply, that night - unbecoming of an assassin - and dreams of someone brushing their fingers through his hair, and saying something indistinct.

The day after that, Taliesen finds them. Zevran is not stupid - he knows what will happen if he turns on the Warden.

Afterward, as he’s lying in the street, his mind goes back to that dream with the aggressive randomness of dying thoughts, and he realizes he remembers what was said after all:

_“I will not let him kill you. I won’t allow it.”_

Of course, the last thing he sees is the magpie.

—

But here is something surprising: he wakes up.

First there is confusion, and then there’s a sharp spike of _fear_ , which is a wholly unfamiliar feeling, but it’s there all the same: the fear that his survival had something to do with Aedan Cousland; that even now he would not be free of the man. 

But this is not Arl Eamon’s estate, and the man sitting next to the bed is not the Warden. It’s an elf, and he looks absolutely _furious_. 

“You are by _far_ the stupidest being I’ve ever met,” he hisses, which seems rather uncalled for, in Zevran’s opinion, but he remembers that voice, and the elf’s eyes are very blue.

He had never seen a magpie with blue eyes. 

For the first time in a long, long time, Zevran feels himself start to smile.

* * *

And then there's Kirkwall, years later, when Varric watches one of his friends get sold back into slavery by the coldest motherfucker he’s ever had the displeasure of getting to know. Once Hawke is done with him, that day, he goes to his rooms at the Hanged Man and thinks _very seriously_ about getting royally drunk instead of trying to deal with this, but he doesn’t bust his ass maintaining his many connections to just let them go to waste. So instead of drinking, he leaves, and goes to the Alienage, and knocks in a very distinctive pattern on a door leading to a house that most people would swear was empty.

“My dearest dwarf!” Zevran Arainai says, when he answers the door. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

There is a person called the Magpie, who operates in Tevinter, and does what magpies are known for: taking things. In this case, though, it’s not _things_ , it’s people, which the Magpie liberates from Tevinter magisters at a rate which is, frankly, infuriating to them. The Magpie occasionally goes to ground when the attention they’ve attracted gets a little too intense, and Varric is one of the few - the _very_ few - who knows that, for the moment, the Magpie has gone to ground in Kirkwall.

(There is something else he’s privileged to know, which is that Magpie isn’t actually one person, but _two_ , and once Zevran lets him in Casrien Surana slinks out of one of the back rooms and politely makes an effort to look like he _hadn't_ been waiting just out of sight in case their company hadn’t been friendly. But that doesn’t really have anything to do with the most important thing, which is the BLIND STUPID LUCK of them being in Kirkwall and owing him a favor.)

So he tells them about Hawke, and Fenris, and once he’s done they exchange a look.

“A magister like Danarius would be… problematic in the best of circumstances, even for us,” Zevran says, eventually.

“And these are not the best of circumstances,” Casrien adds.

“But then it has been a while since we’ve done something so ridiculously, foolishly dangerous,” Zevran says.

“Years, even,” Casrien says, dry as the Anderfels, and fixes Varric with a look so promising of painful retribution if this situation goes bad that he (very) briefly questions if Fenris is worth it.

“I’d owe you,” he says, instead, because of _course_.

“Oh yes,” Zevran says, and grins.

(It’s a crying shame Varric will probably _never_ tell anyone about this, because he’s getting ready to leave when someone pounding on the door turns out to be Aveline with the _exact same idea_.)

(As for the rest, Varric only hears about it second hand, enough to know they were successful. He hopes one day they’ll stop by Kirkwall again, even if it’s to cash in that favor, so he can ask them about how it came to be that Magpie went from two people to _three_.)


End file.
